Grounds for firing GC? Need some feedback!

[Joey Wharton]

Hello BP community. 

I'm on the verge of firing my GC and need some feedback. I don't want to make sure I am being fair and not overreacting.

Background story. Bought a 5-plex we knew needed some work, floors had 5-6" deflection in some areas. Had a engineer look before we bought, said it was pretty straight forward to address. Before commencing work I had an engineer come in for plans and walk through with the contractor. This engineer said we may be better tearing down. My GC then brought his own engineer, whom we hired.  6 weeks later, the work is complete, however didn't pass inspection and we still have 4-5" deflection in most areas and zero lift on one of the floors. We weren't satisfied with the final outcome, GC said its as good as its going to get, so I brought in another engineer for a second opinion. This opened up a whole other can of worms that we now need to address, $20-25k worth. Then we met with the engineer who drew up the plans and he confirmed yes it can be lifted and leveled out more, but he told the GC from the get go that he felt the building was condemnable and didn't want to do the work because it would be a mess and here we are, its a mess. The engineer's words exactly were: "(GC) swayed me into doing this in phases." That was the last straw for me. I feel he was negligent in sharing this information with us, as we would have approached this completely different, especially hearing this from 2 engineers. But of course the GC wanted to secure a job and hefty deposit.

Before we even found this information out, we've deal with the following:

Unauthorized, unapproved work he's now over billing for

He said he was not marking anything up so he invoiced for additional time, material, mileage and fuel - about $2,000 worth. I found out from subs he's marking up 40-80%

He's now trying to bill for his time on top of this because he says there was no mark up, but I got the prices directly from the subs

Sub called to tell me he was going to put a lien on the property because he was not paid by GC, after we paid him 6 weeks ago

They poured cement footers (3ft deep) directly over a baseboard heater water copper pipe, basement is now flooding so we need to see if the cement broke the pipe

His crew broke plumbing pipe and GC would take zero responsibility for it. I had to fix or end up with a flooded basement

GC yanked out a bunch of wiring and took out the upstairs tenant's heat on a Friday evening so we had to work all weekend to fix it - he refuses to take an responsibility

GC has spend some time tracing the wiring to give us an estimate ($17k to rewire) and now that he knows we're not moving forward with him, he wants to bill for the time he took to put the estimate together

GC has been extremely disrespectful to me, yelling at me, calling me a liar, etc. 

No one was onsite when he building inspector showed up so I came back to a tag on the door and flooding basement (same day they broke the pipe).

He made it clear in an email that he was not the GC, only the contractor for the structural work he was hired for, and would be invoicing for his time.

Inspection didn't pass

We didn't sign anything, however as per his own estimate, we needed to pay up to 80% until work passed inspection, which we have done as per his schedule. All work has stopped due to all of the issues that have come to light. He wants to get in there and finish so he can collect another $10,000 - $4600 of is unauthorized / unapproved work. 

After all the issues and deception on his part, I do not trust him to step foot back on my property. Both my partner and I want to fire him. I believe we have grounds for firing based on negligence alone. As per his own estimate, we would not be obligated to pay him another dime as his work did not pass inspection, in which case the permit would be void and we'd need to start over with another contractor. I have been interviewing contractors. 

Do I have reasonable grounds for firing? 

Do I pay him any more, even if he doesn't come back to finish? 

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!